Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Stuttering?

DD2 has been talking and singing in full sentences since a little before 2 years. However, in the last week, at 2 and a quarter, I noticed an occasional stutter (usually when she starts with "I" like "I-I-I want oranges.") She is talking more but I am wondering if anyone seen their DC do slight stutter with sentences that used to pop out with no issues. It does not seem to bother her at this time and only occasional... And we always wait for her to finish. We are not sure if it is simply that she is now in a hurry to talk about multiple things and get her thoughts out more quickly (she had been talking in full 5-8 word sentences for a while but she was more reserved about talking in general - and now, she seems to talk more even to people she used to clam up with). Her teachers have said she was trying to get her class to sing Frozen songs and other similar antics lately so I am wondering if this is just asynchronous development with her mind trying to get her mouth to keep up with her thoughts. Or if this is a more serious development that will affect her ability to express herself adequately as she grows up.

Right now, since it is occasional and not really bothering or affecting her talking most of the time, I am in a wait and see mode, but wondering if others had this experience. She is definitely much more verbal at this age than DS was and much more focused on talking to DH and I, and now with DS, and we had have some people surprised at what pops out of her mouth at times despite her tendency to clam up around most of the people.

When our DS (now 7) was three, his pediatrician recommended him for speech therapy. Whenever DS went to the doctor, he'd clam up and cry a lot. (He knew the doctor meant shots, ear irrigation, etc.!)

Anyway, we were mystified since we only heard an advanced vocabulary with a bit of stuttering at home...usually when we realized he was thinking and speaking at the same time. (I did this as a young child and recall being told to think before I spoke.)

So, we took him off to an OT for evaluation. The therapist said that he spoke at a Kindergarten level! She didn't understand why his pediatrician recommended we see her.

We got a new doctor after that.

Perhaps this is a phase like what our son went through. I think kids like ours have so many ideas at once that they have to sift through them to get out what they want to say when they are that young. Especially when they are tired or hungry or in DS' case-scared!

Stuttering is very common in little ones. My four year old will sometimes get overly excited and stutter, but it was a lot more common between 2 and 3. He had poor pronunciation, and we worked with him to properly pronounce "oil pump." That worked, until he saw one. Then he was just so excited the only thing that would come out was "opapa! opapa! opapa!"

Don't worry about for a few years. Stuttering in adults is quite psychological (worse under nerves), so the general advice for very young stutterers is not to call attention to it at all, positive or negative.

Same thing happen when my son was 2.5 yrs old, he used to speak 4 to 5 sentences at a time, but with some words stuttered. (We speak cantonese) He is now three, no stutter anymore. I think it is just a phase that their language ability cannot catch up with their mind.
My son now sometimes speak very slow and monotone, especially when he is speaking to other kids. Most likely he is still figuring out how to use his language to describe what he think.
I think it is normal, but ask her pediatrician when she still stutter when she get older.

It's usually nothing to be worried about - it's a developmental phase and will pass on it's own most of the time. My DS did this too but from 3-4 or so.

DS4 benefited from a brief round of speech therapy for stuttering this year. His came on strong and he became very upset by it quickly, despite patience from others and explanation at home when he needed it. It also faded quickly. Now he experiences mild dysfluency only intermittently, and usually when he seems like he seems to be mentally ascending a plateau or stressed out/ anxious. We still use the techniques the therapist gave him e.g. bridging and slowly pronouncing each syllable like a robot when he needs them. He isn't upset by it anymore. I worry about it presenting a barrier in the future but am hopeful he will grow out of it. At least he's learned how to appreciate it for what it is and conscientiously tackle it when it rears up. The pediatrician referred him because of his strong early and sustained language capability as well as how emotionally effected he was by it. From what I've read about it, as has been said, during preschool years it's usually a developmental phase and not something to be worried about as long as the child isn't worried about it and /or it doesn't persist for several months. Good luck.

Thanks, all! We will definitely bring it up if it persists or gets stronger by her 2.5 year check up (just 3 months away). So far, when I observe her with regards to talking, it seems like she sometimes has more than one thought she wants to get out at once. DH noted that it seemed like in last few weeks, she has also started introducing more abstract or complicated phrases and thoughts even though her sentences are not a lot longer.

DD had a touch of selective mutism when she started preschool, although the pedi felt she was too young to call it that. She eventually started talking after about a year at preschool, when she was about 3.5 yo. Fast forward to 2nd grade - at the behest of her teacher, her public school did quite a bit of testing b/c she was such an outlier intellectually and socially, and she ended up with a speech IEP for a form of stuttering (mazing?). We noticed it once it was pointed out to us but not before, but have reason to believe the stuttering was much worse at school. The school provided speech therapy for about 1.5 years, and the stuttering problem cleared up.

At 14 yo, she is still a huge academic outlier and a social misfit, but a very articulate one. ;-)

As long as the stuttering is infrequent, and there doesn't seem to be any triggering mechanism, I wouldn't worry about it. I did something similar, and I outgrew it. It's a thoughts-running-faster-than-mouth thing. It's probably helpful to point out the stuttering behavior from time to time, though, so it doesn't end up becoming a permanent speech tick. She may not notice she's doing it, just as many adults don't notice they're saying, "You know what I mean?" or some variant after every... single... torturous... phrase.

I still occasionally have an issue where I lay out a sentence in my mind, start speaking it, and halfway through decide to substitute a better word. The two words end up colliding on my tongue, and I end up delivering a hybrid morphling of the original words. DD9 finds it entertaining.

DS8 started doing it recently and it definitely is too many thoghts running around his brain and difficulty choosing what he wants to say so he does the verbal pause. We have pointed it out and recommend he pause and then say what he means. It's actually driving me nuts because he never used to do it. I am hoping we don't have to go to speech. It's so random.

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